For Darkness Shows the Stars Part 11

"Care to tell me what your father has against music?" Andromeda asked abruptly.

"It's not music," Elliot replied. "It's control." It was always control.

Three years ago, Baron Zachariah North had caught wind of the unofficial orchestra operating on the North estate. Where some of the estate lords would have taken advantage of the spontaneous resource-as if they'd come across a patch of natural gas or a seam of coal-Baron North had been displeased. He'd not authorized any such endeavor, and he wouldn't have approved of it at any rate. Music was a distraction from his laborers' duties, much like school or books or more than the allotted number of feasts. Things were bad enough on the estate already, and they'd been getting steadily worse since the death of the baroness a year earlier. Baron North had had far too many duties to take over and concerns to keep himself occupied with. If someone was going to get more leisure time, it would be him, not his servants.

He'd forbidden the concerts and practice sessions and confiscated the instruments from all the Reduced on the estate. Elliot could still see the bonfires-the flames that had once been a hallmark of harvest celebrations turned into pyres for the laborers' only joy.

Yet the restrictions had had little effect. More pipes and string-boxes had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and the practice sessions had gone on in secret. When the baron discovered that his own daughter was helping his people in their treason, he'd finally had an object toward which to aim his wrath.

The first and only time Elliot had been glad that Kai had left was when the bad time came. Her father had come first for the Posts she'd liked best. Kai's position on the farm had already been too precarious to have survived.

"You hear some pretty scary things about the North estate down in the Post enclaves."

Elliot squeezed her hands together in her lap. "From him?"

"From everyone."

Elliot grimaced. She could well imagine the stories that followed the affair. Reduced who disobeyed the baron's orders were shown no mercy and no quarter. He extended the restrictions to the CORs, and when he learned that they were hiding their instruments, he dissolved the COR family housing units that had been in place as long as Elliot had been alive, and relegated all the CORs to single-s.e.x, age-organized barracks alongside the Reduced. Children were taken from their mothers, common-laws were separated, and that's when the real trouble started.

And Elliot couldn't protect any of them. Not then, not alone. She'd messed up badly, and the estate was still paying for it. It wouldn't happen again.

"Of course," Andromeda said, "bad as you are, the estate where I was born was far worse."

"You left when you were quite young, I understand."

"Had to," she replied. "Where I'm from, the lady of the estate believed all Posts were the product of . . . relations between the Luddites and the Reduced. We were made to bear the punishment for her husband's sins."

"That's horrible!" Elliot cried. And of course, since her mother had been Reduced, she could hardly have protected them-not like Dee could protect Jef. "Was your father Reduced, too?"

Andromeda hesitated. "My father was the master, Elliot. Our lady wasn't wrong about everything."

Elliot was glad for the darkness, glad Andromeda couldn't see her mouth hanging open. Such things did not happen on the North estate. Hadn't happened since she was young and Benedict had been sent away. Her father wouldn't have it.

"But even my father could not account for all the Posts that started crowding his estate. And you know Luddites. They wouldn't do genetic testing to prove their theory one way or the other. My lady's belief was that her G.o.d would never allow anything other than Luddite, Reduced, and the abominable combination of the two. To her, we were as abhorrent as a hybrid plant."

Elliot stiffened. Why, of all comparisons, had the Post chosen that one?

"Here we are," said Andromeda as she pulled up in front of the big house.

Elliot looked over at the Post girl, but now that they were bathed in the light from the house window, Andromeda had once again fallen silent.

"I am very sorry for what you were made to endure," Elliot said at last.

"Don't be sorry for me," said Andromeda. "Be sorry for those who still live there." She stared down at the controls in her hands. "I hate the estates, but you are no monster. As long as there are people under your care, I hope you will care for them."

Elliot's jaw tightened at her words. She didn't need the blessing of this Post, no matter what Andromeda had been through. She'd known her duties since she could p.r.o.nounce the word "Luddite."

"Be strong, Elliot."

Elliot didn't respond, and instead turned to Ro. "Good night, Ro. I hope you enjoyed the music."

Ro nodded and leaned over the edge of the cart to give Elliot a hug.

"She'll show you where she lives," Elliot said to Andromeda.

"I'm serious," said Andromeda. "Everything . . . else aside, I am aware that you are all that stands between your Posts and your father."

She was wrong. Elliot knew that now. The Posts themselves stood there. Dee stood, without her common-law. Gill stood, a forty-year-old laborer willing to fight a teenager for saying Elliot was useless. Or worse than useless-complicit. Thom and so many others had stood, willing to walk away from the farm rather than let Baron North continue with his reign of terror. She may have made those instruments, but it was the Posts who wanted to play them. It was the Posts who were willing to hide them, the Posts willing to defy her father as his punishments grew ever harsher.

No, she couldn't protect them then. Not then, at fifteen, still reeling from the loss of her mother and Kai and trying to figure out how the baroness had managed her father with such finesse all those years. She couldn't stop her father from putting Gill's eleven-year-old daughter in the women's barracks, from slapping Dee in stocks for two days after she was discovered sneaking instruments out to the Grove estate, or from beating Thom for trying to break Dee out of those stocks.

And perhaps she couldn't protect them now either, but she'd learned something important back there at the concert. She might do her best to protect them-and fail-but she hadn't realized until now they were also protecting her.

Dee chose to sneak those instruments. Thom chose to rescue the woman he loved. And then, when so many of the Posts left the estate, Dee and Gill and Mags and the others chose to stay behind. Maybe they chose like Elliot had one year earlier. They chose to save the estate, to protect the Reduced that had even less agency than they did.

Maybe they chose to protect Elliot herself.

She'd always told herself that the reason Dee wouldn't reveal where Thom had gone was because she didn't fully trust Elliot. But maybe Dee didn't tell her about Thom so it wasn't possible for Elliot to get in trouble for keeping it a secret. Elliot was a Luddite and their superior on the estate, yes, but it was Dee and Gill and Thom who were the grown-ups.

Elliot turned away from Andromeda without another word and marched into the house. She didn't change her clothes or redo her hair but went straight up to the door of her father's office and knocked. If he sought to punish her, she wouldn't hide. If he hoped to punish the others, she would fight.

EIGHT YEARS AGO.

Dear Elliot, Where have you been? You haven't come to the barn in days. Tell me when you are coming back.

Your friend, Kai Dear Kai, I guess by now you have heard the news. Benedict has been sent away from the North Estate. I don't know what it is he did. Mother won't tell me, and all I've been able to find out is that it was very bad and has something to do with the Reduced. What is the word among the CORs?

Your friend, Elliot Dear Elliot, I haven't heard anything at all here. My da never listens to gossip. Where did he go? Another estate?

Your friend, Kai Dear Kai, I don't know. No one tells me anything. Tatiana said he was turned out into the cold, but I don't think that's true. She always makes up stories. Like she tells me all the Posts that run away end up in butcher shops. I didn't eat meat for a month, and then my mother found out what Tatiana had said.

I can't think of what Benedict might have done. Beat a Reduced?

Your friend, Elliot Dear Elliot, If I know your father, it was probably because Benedict didn't beat the Reduced enough. You know where that butcher shop story comes from, don't you? Long ago, before there were CORs, before the Estates could manage to feed themselves, there were Luddites who ate Reduced. At least, that's what the legends say. The older Posts tell that story on feast nights to scare the rest of us.

So, when can you come back to the barn? I have something to show you!

Your friend, Kai Dear Kai, I'm not coming to see you until you take that back. Luddites never ate people!

Your friend, Elliot Dear Elliot, Did so.

Your friend, Kai Dear Kai, TAKE THAT BACK NOW.

NOT your friend, Elliot Dear Elliot, I know why Benedict was sent away. I will tell you if you come see me.

Your friend, Kai Dear Elliot, Come on. I know you want to know.

Your friend, Kai Dear Elliot, Fine. Be that way. I never want to see you again. Though you are really missing out.

Not your friend, either, Kai PS: If you think the Luddites eating the Reduced is bad, you should hear what Benedict did.

Nineteen.

"COME IN." HER FATHER was standing by his desk. There was a fire in the grate, and every lantern was lit. Elliot squinted in the sudden brightness, so different from the cool forest night.

"Ah, Elliot, you're early. Good." He lifted his hand as if in presentation. "My younger daughter. You may remember her."

A man stood up from the chair near the fire. He was dressed in a plum-colored velvet coat that wouldn't be out of place on any member of the Fleet. "I remember her, but I never would have recognized her. You've turned into a beautiful young woman, cousin."

"Benedict?" Elliot asked in bafflement, too shocked by his presence to even offer a lame note of grat.i.tude in response to his flattery. She hadn't seen him in more than eight years. He'd been younger than she was now when her father had banished him from the estate. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she was able to make out his features. The sharp, high cheekbones, the incongruous dark eyes in his pale face that still held the unmistakable stamp of North blood. His hair, once a sandy-brown mop of curls, was now cut close to his head, revealing an angular skull and a sculpted neck. He was beautiful, she realized. Far more than she, with her face still flushed from her fight with Kai, with her hair all mussed from her wild ride through the forest. Far more than any of the Norths. Perhaps, with his fine clothes and keen expression, more beautiful even than Ro.

But what had she expected? A monster, just because what he'd done was monstrous?

Elliot looked at her father to gauge his mood. Why had the prodigal nephew returned? How did her father feel about it?

"We were surprised that you weren't here to greet us, daughter," Baron North said. "Tatiana explained that you'd gone to our tenants' little picnic."

"I thought it was proper to have one member of the family there," Elliot responded carefully. Was it possible he hadn't called her here to berate her about the concert? "And it saved Tatiana from going-"

Baron North snorted. "What did I tell you, Benedict? She is obsessed with anything having to do with these CORs."

Benedict smiled. "A rare quality, sir. It's little wonder you find it so shocking."

Elliot shot him a look, but if her father understood the alternate take on Benedict's words, he took no notice of it.

"I'm glad you agree with me, young man. I feared that living so long amongst them might have given you strange ideas-"

"There are many good people among the Posts, Uncle," said Benedict, "but the best are those who remember what they owe to us. I suspect, from what you've told me, that these Innovations are exactly the type I mean."

"Is that so, Elliot?" her father asked. "Have they been showing us all the proper respect since their arrival?"

"What did Tatiana say?" Elliot asked, still careful.

Her father smiled at her as if to offer indulgence, but she knew better. "I am interested to hear your take."

Elliot hesitated. If Tatiana had shared the truth, she had nothing to fear. The Innovations themselves had been nothing but proper, even if Andromeda and Kai had taken pleasure in pus.h.i.+ng Tatiana's b.u.t.tons-and her own. Indeed, the only thing Tatiana could possibly have complained about was Kai's ongoing flirtation with Olivia Grove, and if anything, her father would probably gloat to hear about a Grove acting in a way he'd consider inappropriate. Though he'd buried his grudge against the family after Horatio's father died and Horatio took over the farm, Baron North was not above making digs at the Grove's supposed inferiority.

But the question remained: Had Tatiana shared those stories, or was her father merely looking for a way to trip her up? Could he not find a way to blame her for a concert on his tenants' lands, and so sought to introduce his punishment for another cause?

"They have been very respectful, Father," Elliot replied at last, "which is why I thought it would be proper of me to accept their invitation this evening. I'm sure it was an honor for them to have a North attend their party."

"More than just a North attended, though, did they not, Elliot?" her father asked. "I saw our CORs there."

"They were invited by the Innovations," Elliot said. "Their behavior, as well, was beyond reproach."

"No doubt because Elliot was there to oversee them," Benedict pointed out. "It was good that she attended, to remind your servants of their place, Uncle Zachariah."

Elliot gave her cousin another look of surprise. Why was he coming to her defense?

"Indeed." Her father's expression remained shrewd. Abruptly he straightened. "Well, Elliot, as you can see, Benedict has come home at last. He needs a room made up for him for tonight, and then tomorrow we can see about having his old rooms redecorated for him."

"His old rooms are currently housing Grandfather," Elliot said.

"You don't say!" Her father shook his head in disbelief. "But he's bedridden. He can't possibly need an entire suite."

Her grandfather was used to having an entire home, and was forced to give that up so the Norths could save their estate in the wake of the baron's mismanagement. Elliot checked her frown before her father noticed.

Where had he expected her to put the Boatwright? In the cellar?

"I'm sure there's no cause to uproot an old man twice in such quick succession," said Benedict. "And I'm not used to large quarters anymore, anyway. Please, Elliot, Uncle Zachariah-don't worry on my behalf. Now, where has Tatiana gone? Shall I go fetch her? I'd love to spend the evening reminiscing."

Her father's face softened at once, though Elliot wondered what it was these two men would have to reminisce about. Benedict's rebellious teen years? The way her father had devalued the estate since Benedict's father had died? The disgusting infraction that had gotten her cousin banished seven years ago?

"I'll go look for Tatiana," Benedict said. "It would be a shame to waste all this lovely light." He tapped the edge of a lantern. "Uncle, you should truly consider replacing some of these with Post sun-lamps. There is an initial investment cost, but sunlight is always free, and you get so much more of it in the north." He smiled and departed.

Elliot looked at her father, but he appeared neither red nor sputtering, as one would expect following a recommendation to use a Post product. Then again, he was also in possession of Post horses, and he hadn't been too proud for those.

What was Benedict doing here? Why had her father chosen now, at long last, to retrieve the missing heir? Or had it been Benedict who'd finally come home to his estate, and was her father's apparent welcome an effort to heal the breach should her cousin attempt to take the estate from him at once?

She didn't know what to make of the man, either. The rumors she'd heard all her life made him out to be little better than the master of Andromeda's old estate. But it seemed obvious he embraced Post fas.h.i.+ons and technology. And his subtle jabs at her father hinted at something else: a mind-set more like her own.

Her father turned to the desk. "Do you have the numbers for the harvest?"

"Yes, Father." She pointed to a piece of paper on the desk.

He glanced at it. "I see the loss of your precious field for my racetrack didn't affect the bottom line as much as you feared."

"No, Father." The loss of a normal field of wheat would not have. However, had it been left standing, its contribution to their stockpile would have been significant. Perhaps so significant that she couldn't have hidden it from him if the grain had been brought to harvest. In all of her careful planning, she hadn't thought of that. She'd been too eager to make sure there was enough food, enough money, to keep the estate afloat. Perhaps the next time she tried her experiment, she wouldn't do a whole field. Half a field would more easily hide the additional grain, and she could steadily increase the percentage each year so that . . .

"Oh, Elliot," her father said, not looking up from the paperwork. "I noticed that COR foreman of ours at the picnic this evening. You know, the one with the child?"

Elliot's blood ran cold. "Dee."

"That's the one. She's quite far into her pregnancy to still be walking about, isn't she? Move her into the birthing house tomorrow."

"But father," Elliot said, "she lives in a Post cottage. She has a son to care for. And her condition has not affected her work at all-"